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The Neo 1973 was designed as open source hardware and it is mostly using hardware components with open source drivers,

The device is named after the first year of mobile telephone communication: the inventor of the mobile phone, Martin Cooper, made the first call in 1973. The phone released was inconsistently-named Neo 1973 or Neo1973.[5]

The Neo 1973 was sold from July 9, 2007 to February 2008. It was priced at US$300 for the basic model, or US$450 for a kit including more tools for hardware work.

The initial releases of the Neo 1973 were hampered by supplier shortages, which forced the shipping date to slip, and hardware development difficulties exacerbated by the small size of the core team.[6]